Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Orientalism

How to say "Orientalism" in Hindi?

Shabdkosh tells about the word "oriental":
oriental
adjective

पूर्वी

Definitions

adjective

denoting or characteristic of countries of Asia

noun

a member of an Oriental race; the term is regarded as offensive by Asians (especially by Asian Americans)
http://www.shabdkosh.com/s?e=oriental&f=0&t=0&l=hi

"Orientalism" or any "ism" should be a latter construct - we can make anything into an "ism" for our own pleasure also. I am not sure if there is an exact Hindi equivalent. This term "orientalism" was invented by the Western countries.

The term is controversial too.

A central idea of Orientalism is that Western knowledge about the East is not generated from facts or reality, but from preconceived archetypes that envision all "Eastern" societies as fundamentally similar to one another, and fundamentally dissimilar to "Western" societies. This discourse establishes "the East" as antithetical to "the West".
Edward Said and The Production of Knowledge, by Sethi,Arjun (University of Maryland).

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